Bond Denied For Woman Charged in 5-State Jewelry Theft

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Atlanta, GA -- A Smyrna woman accused of taking part in a five-state jewelry store robbery spree will remain in jail.

That’s because Federal Magistrate Judge Linda Walker denied bond for Abigail Lee Kemp, 24, adding that the woman was a flight risk, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Kemp and fellow suspect and Atlanta resident Lewis Jones III, 35, were arrested together Jan. 8 in Smyrna on charges related to the armed robberies of six jewelry stores in Panama City Beach, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee, the FBI previously told Patch.

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According to WXIA-TV, authorities were able to track down Kemp when she allegedly admitted that she was on the phone with an alleged accomplice during one of the robberies. That phone call with the accomplice, who was standing outside the store serving as a lookout, was one of many agents used to track her down, the station reported.

The complaint filed against both suspects alleges that, in each robbery, the robber or robbers displayed a handgun, ordered the employees to the back of the store, ordered them to lie face-down on the floor, and bound their hands behind their backs with zip ties.

The suspects then removed hundreds of thousands of dollars-worth of jewelry from the display cases. The spree appears to have kicked off in Woodstock with the April 28, 2015, robbery of Jared Vault at the Outlet Shoppes at Atlanta.

The punishment for the alleged crime is a maximum of 20 years in prison. This case resulted from an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Assistant United States Attorney Kathryn D. Risinger is prosecuting the case.

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Images via surveillance camera footage provided by the FBI